Published on May 5, 2015
I had a near collision and accident 1:15:50 at night with a car in the Maplewood Commons shopping center of my city. Routinely I have to travel through this area to get around town. I live in a highly commercialized part of the metro area with next to no bike infrastructure.
I was arguably on the main road that cuts through the shopping complex with the right of way. The car was in a left turn lane with a stop line on what is a minor road and they sort of did a rolling stop. We both were trying to make a left.
I signaled as you can tell by my shadow, but I had to stop signaling to cover both brake levers to make my turn. The driver might not have noticed my intention because his view could have been blocked by the other car turning right, although that's speculative, and even if I wasn't making a left he was beginning to cut into my path had I gone straight through the intersection.
Like a good cyclist I could feel something was about to happen so prepared myself mentally as evidenced in my speech captured on video, but I ended up hitting the brakes too hard anyway and skid to a stop where I nearly fell over but used the car's hood to stop myself with my left hand and avoided an accident.
